A D E A T H story
by Dying Rose on The Vine
Summary: What do a nursing home, a letter loyal student, and a death-defying mad-man all have in common? Why, they're all a part of this crazy little tale-Based on the story line for the creator of Stupid Sock Creatures
1. The Thickening

**A D.E.A.T.H story**

A Drathmave's Ever After Twilight Home story

_Author's note:_ I debated, after a long while, about never putting another chapter of anything up here ever again. But I know I have readers, and I know I have reviews, and I know I have friends, fans, and fellow writers who read what I do, so…It's time to stop being so selfish and live once again. If I never get one review ever again, that'll be just fine. I'll keep working, until the kerosene oil runs dry. Ever single review to me it precious, from the lols to full length ones. It makes me appreciate what I do, makes me want to do it some more. So, without further ado, I give you…

_A disclaimer:_ All of these characters but two or three are all belonging to John Murphy, the creator of stupid Sock Creatures. He makes marvelous things out of old clothing and such. Go on and check him out at: www. stupidcreatures. com. Be that as it may, this disclaimer is here to say something else (-check that sentence out.) It is here to say that I may not get these characters personalities right, but I'll try to be as spot on as I can, and scenery, background stories,- I'm doing the best I can with what resources I have. I wish there was more. There may also be some innuendos and quotes stolen from sweet 80's movies. So, like Pixar the humor will be very impropriate, but kiddies won't catch it. Hurhur. Let's get this party started, yo.

Chapther One

The Thickening

It was dark and rainy. Not just any rain, it was a cold heavy winter rain in the middle of a warm September. And a Monday, he always sent letters on Saturday night, so they'd get there Monday morning…

There was a lone figure in the rain, on a lone hill that overlooked a lonely lone building that sat in a gully away from the rest of the world. A stony drive crawled up to the entrance, which was a spiky rod iron gate, like a lace earth worm. The lone figure wondered why a nursing home would need such a gate. Such a building. It was such a scary place. The Ever After Twilight Home looked like something out of an old black-and-white movie where the bats, hung on coarse black wires shot, down at the hapless victims. The figure made its way down the hill on squat little legs, its feet leaving round impressions in the dam earth. The thing was huffing and puffing as it descended, clenching its taxi yellow raincoat to itself. When it finally made its way to the gate, it breathed; "Finally," in a young lady voice, making the figure female.

She held on to the gate, panting hard. Her car had broken down a few miles back, she had called for help but there was no service way out here. So tried to push it off the road a little bit, and headed off herself. That clearly was a mistake, as now it was dark and visiting hours were over. She was cutting it close to start with, sitting by the mail box, waiting. Waiting for a letter that never came…

And she was gunna find out why. She caught her breath sharply, cursing at herself mentally for never taking gym class seriously. The rod-iron gate was pad-locked, and next to the massive pad-lock was an old wooden sign, the writing slightly faded from time and weather, also hung up with a chain. It gave a bleary greeting and the times.

"Welcome to Drathmave's Ever After Twilight Home," The sign said in a sad faded letters, and then it had the times for visiting hours, "Monday-Friday 10:00 Am – 6 Pm, Saturday 9:00 Am-10:00 Pm, Sunday 8:00 Am- 5 Pm."

By her guesstimation, it must have been at least around seven out. She sighed harshly and rattled the gate again…Maybe she should just come back tomorrow. She lowered her hooded head in thought and slight despair. But a little voice in her head whispered, 'You got this far already, and are you really going to be able to walk back to your car? Your run down car? What about the coyots, the cyotes will get you."

She lifted up her head and nodded-determination rekindled in her simple black eyes. They were heavy hooded, like everyone else in her family, making them all look wise but simple. Like a very old farmer. Rubbing her hands together, she took a step back and went at the gate with a flying leap.

She grasped a hold of the slippery bars with her grey thin hands; they weren't hands of someone who did a lot of heavy lifting. They were hands of a three fingered bookish gal. She was only a few feet from the ground but still afraid to fall. She climbed up the best she could, struggling at each grip and at each step, but she made it, oh gosh, did she make it, up and over the gate. The lass landed ungracefully, her hands and knees covered in mud. She stood up and made a disgusted noise, trying to wipe her hands off on her raincoat. This just made her look even messier. With a sigh, she mentally shrugged it off and trudged up the rest of the path to the nursing home.

With the security cams watching her every step of the way.

Her stubby feet prodded up like steps, only three of them, grey as cinderblocks and about the same material too. She swallowed hard. She suddenly felt…scared. But why should she be scared? It was just a nursing home, after all. She forced herself to bring a muddy fist to the door and knock, leaving little dirt marks in her fist's wake.

And she waited…

When no one came, she tried the knocker, covering that in mud too.

And waited.

When no one showed up to answer the door, she tried the handle, which was ordinate and looked as though it had been recently polished. So clean and smooth she could see herself in it. She pushed down on its little leaver, and the door gave.

It was open.

Hesitantly, she held the door just where it was, open but not opening to anywhere. She stomped her feet a bit for some moral support, and opened the door up just enough to slip in. Warm yellow light from the inside poured out into the dark. She slipped in, and closed the door behind her.


	2. Whiplashing

A D.E.A.T.H Story

(A Drathmave's Ever After Twilight Home story)

Author's note: I had some serious trouble writing this chapter. I just kept stumbling over my little word feet here, and leapt over a few things there. I had to slow this chapter down, so I hope it isn't too slow. It is a pretty important one, not that any chapter here isn't important. Well, yes, keep reading. I wanna see Surrogates.

Disclaimer: The characters and story mentioned here are based off a story line by John Murphy. Be that as it may, if I get something tragically wrong, I am very sorry. I'm also very sorry that nursing homes are so creepy.

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Chapther Two  
Whiplashing

Once she was inside the nursing home, she could see how silly she was being. It wasn't scary at all; but warm, and dry, and a bit like a dentist office. It had three horribly upholstered overstuffed armchairs, two old low wooden coffee tables at both ends of the armchair row with magazines messily placed on top, and a counter that protruded out of the farthest wall, with a window shape cut out above it for a receptionist to look out.

No one was there.

The walls were white, interrupted by a coppery double swing door next to the receptionist counter, and there was a single potted plant in a corner that looked like it needed some love. She was getting mud all over their maroon welcome mat as she stomped about, trying to get it off.

She gave up, deciding there was no way she was getting the mud off, and waddled up to the counter. She could barely see over the ledge, even when she was up on her tip toes. She felt about on top for a bell to ding, but one wasn't there. Nothing was. Not even a pencil.

"Hello?" She called out after sighing, hoping someone would hear her, but she hardly heard herself. Her voice got so small inside her. She cleared her throat and tried again, "Heeello."

Her voice echoed down the seemingly empty endless halls. There still was no one. She gripped the counter with her little grey hands and waited for another moment. She called hello again, feeling rather irritated at this point. Backing away, she sat down in an overstuffed ugly armchair, unknowingly getting mud all over it as she shifted about nervously, quite unsure what to do next.

She couldn't just leave; there was no way she could make it back to her home on foot. And she didn't like the idea of walking to the nearest town in the dark and in the rain. She had to find out why Mr. Hojiba, her mentor, didn't write this week... So, she let her eyes meander around the room to ease her mind. Her legs gave a metaphoric sigh of relief when she decided just to sit there for a while; it felt so good to relax…

A motivational poster caught her eye. It was black bordered, with a huge oak or maple or something like that in the center of it. Underneath the picture, in fancy text, it read; "Life begins at 80"

This made the corners of her mouth lift up as she laughed a little on the inside. It calmed her down, made her feel a bit at ease. She still couldn't decide what to do next so she picked up a magazine called 'ProAge' and started to flip through it.

An article caught her eye about teeth. She subconsciously rubbed at her own as she read. She was just about done with the article when someone cleared their throat so sharply that it cut through the warm air like titanium fabric scissors. It startled her so badly that she flew out of her chair, yellow hood falling off from the top of her head.

"Yes?" The voice asked, sounding frankly irritated that someone dared to make callings so late "Who is yelling Hello so late at night?"

She was about to point out that it, being only eight or seven, was hardly late at all but didn't. Her tongue felt heavy, like it had sunk down into the bottom of her jaw and was never going to come up again. She took a deep breath and scuttled to the counter again, twitting her fingers nervously. The owner of the voice looked down at her like some kind of narrow eyed piranha. His face was pale with a thick stripe of orange down the center of it. He had tubes that stuck out on either ends of his head, almost perfectly straight out, and were pale just like his face. They had bands of magenta and purple, tipped off with orphan blue, the saddest of all the blues. He was wearing an awful sweater that almost matched the colour of his body only that the blue was the majority of the sweater and darker than his tube tips. He had three round teeth that stuck out of his mouth, and was wide and squat, and looked far too silly to be running a nursing home, or manning a receptionist desk.

"Yeah, um," She started, rubbing the back of her head. She looked up at the ceiling instead of at him, very unsure of herself, "I was, well, wondering if I could see Mister Hojiba. Just to, um, see how he is."

"Mister Hojiba?" The receptionist said without missing a beat, "There is no Hojiba here," He gave a light blink and a tube wiggle before continuing on, "Yes; you are mistaken, go home now-"

She was looking at him now, confusion etched on her face. He leaned over the counter and their eyes met. He gave her such a look; it made her step back. It was like he took her all in with a single glance; her short pudginess, her blue body with mustard yellow head tubes that stuck up with fright and tipped with white, a protruding lower lip which two large teeth that stuck out like a V, almost but not quiet obscuring her vision, even her small tail that stuck out from under her rain coat with its single sunshine stripe; and decided that she was his.

She gulped, grabbing her ears and brought them down until they looked like a burka around her head, "I-I'm so very sorry. I didn't mean to come so late," She replied timidly, losing her voice for a moment there, "But I know he's here. Y-you see he sends me letters…like, like, every week. Always, e-every week. They're all from this address so he _has_ to be here."

She was fairly certain he wasn't listening to the words coming out of her mouth.

"Have you a name?" The uncaring receptionist asked, producing a pen. He absentmindedly clicked it against the top of the counter, and then added, "Visiting hours are over, yes. Tomorrow you must come back and try again, we will be open then. I will write down your name and number and tell you when we are open, yes?"

"Um…" She wasn't sure if she really wanted to give out information that otherwise wasn't personal, but at this moment it felt like he was asking her to revel intimate secrets with him. She really didn't like the way he was looking at her. Every time she moved a muscle, his eyes snapped there like a school of fish.

"Japoo," She said finally, "Japoo Oplomyer."

He didn't write it down; instead he just kept on giving her that awful leering look.

"Phone number…?" The sound of his voice was as awful as his stare, like he was talking with too much spit in his mouth or something.

Japoo nodded,"Oh, right, sorry. Four five free three…" She started, watching him click the pen, and without taking his eyes off her as he wrote down the numbers as they came, "Seven seven two…four one five."

And then he went back to clicking the pen, "Your name and number are both nice, yes but you have no relation to Mister Hojiba, so you have no place to be visiting him. Now go away."

She gulped hard, and thought about just going away. Yeah, that sounded like her best but, but a tiny voice reminded her of her lack of car, the rain, and the cyotes. She built up enough courage to say, "But, um, you see, my car broke down awhile back, so I walked here. I-in the rain…Co-could I at least use your phone, please?"

"Phone…?" The receptionist tilted his wide head, as though he had never heard of such a thing, "Ah, yes. Indeed, of course, how rude of me," He jumped down from the hidden desk-chair, and opened an equally hidden drawer. All she could hear were the sounds of these things. She heard him unlock the double-swing doors, and opened up one of them, beckoning her to come. Needless to say, she was having second thoughts.

"Listen," She said, "It's late, you're right, maybe I should just wait outside until morning-"

"No, no!" The receptionist insisted, quickly letting go to the door and running to her side. He waddled, worse than she on her stubby legs; he put his whole body into it, like a coffee table coming to life. He grabbed her by her grey elbow. His arms the same colour as his pale face, and were as stubby as his legs, "Look at you, you are covered in mud. There is a bathroom in that office, yes. Use the phone in there and clean up. And then you will wait in the waiting room where the waiting is done-

"But-" She started, but he jumped all over her sentence with words of his own.

"In the waiting room, Miss Oplomyer, I insist, yes!"

She swallowed the rest of her words and nodded. Trying to not look at him, he took her by her arm and led her through the double swing doors. Japoo felt a sudden onslaught of dread. She wasn't sure why, but she knew she didn't want to go through those doors.

But they did go through the double swing doors. She was mildly disappointed that there wasn't anything scary on the other side.

The double swing doors led to a narrow hallway, with tacky squishy carpet and walls covered with floral wall paper, with a door to their left. She wondered briefly if it was mandatory for all nursing homes to have ugly floral wall paper when the rounded toothed receptionist opened the door to the left and pointed her in.

"The phone is there for use," He reminded her, holding the door open for her as she walked in. She was well aware that he was watching her in a most devious manner as she did so. Japoo was afraid he was going to shut himself in with her, but was thankful when he just slammed it behind himself as he left. She gave a great big sigh of relief when he was gone.

Never in her entire life had she been so close to someone so creepy. Sure, she had a bad batch of boyfriends in her day, enough to make her think that the nunnery was a good life decision, but there was something just wrong with him. Something unsound. She repressed a shutter as she thought about it. What a day. What she wouldn't give for a day that was disaster free…

The room was designed much like the hall outside. Squishy tacky carpet, floral wallpaper wall. Warm. Insufferably warm. She took her rain coat off and put it on the back of the chair that was there. She then went to pick up the little red phone that was hidden under the counter for some reason, and started to punch in the number to the local car repair place she knew (Her car broke down quite often, you see, and no matter how many times she had it fixed, something always managed to get broken). She got through half the phone number when her bladder made itself known. Deciding she wouldn't make it through the whole call, Japoo hung up the phone and scampered into the bathroom as quickly as she could.

The bathroom in the little office looked like someone's Grandma's bathroom, and kind of smelled like one too. Japoo unrolled some toilet paper from the roll it was on and laid it on the toilet seat lightly. She measured with her eyes to see if that was enough, and sat down, satafified with her attention to bathroom hygiene. Peeing made her body tingle with warmth, and as she was doing the deed, she thought about her situation. If she called the mechanic now, they'd be here in an hour, maybe more thanks to the weather. And then what? Her car would be towed (again) and she'd have to sleep in the garage (again) if none of the hotels have a vacancy, and knowing her luck, they won't. And she'd go home the next day and find that the mailman just misplaced the letter. She wiped gingerly, thinking about the irony of all. That's what would happen. Or she'd call and they wouldn't be home and she would have to sleep here. Ugh…She wondered why that horrible secretary had lied to her. She knew that she didn't get the address wrong. And now that she thought of it, didn't Mr. Hojiba mention someone like him?

She thought about this grimly, as she washed her hands. Trying desperately to remember. How was it that when you need something of importance, it never was there in your mind? She looked down at her muddy feet. There was no way in hell she could bring her legs up to the sink, so she left it at that. Maybe it would keep the creepier at bay.

Japoo exited the bathroom, feeling much better and went to try the phone again. She dialed up the number, and placed the receiver to the base of her tube and waited for it to start ringing.

The rings melodiously went off. One, two, three times before someone on the other end picked up.

"Ello?" A voice yelled on the other end. He only yelled because of the clanging in the back ground. The sound of metal against metal, flanking rust, gushing oil, and of things being drilled, "Pojohn and Joepo's Autobody work and repairs, how can we help you tonight?"

The sound of her cousin's voice made her feel like she was somewhere safe. Like everything was going to be all right. They always managed to make everything all right. They had dropped out of high school and started a mechanic shop. And while they were the neighborhood gossip for a while, they never doubted themselves. And she was grateful that they decided to follow their dreams, rather than get a sociology degree or something. Very few sociologists could fix a broken muffler.

"Hey, Pojohn," Japoo said, trying to sound toneless, but it came out more of a mix of embarrassed and utter delight, "I'm having some car trouble-" He was laughing on the other end, "Wanna help me out?"

"What happened this time?" He asked, in a tone that sounded like he said that often. Joepo said something in the background that she didn't quite hear, and it caused them both to laugh. It made her tubes flop to the side, as she blushed with embarrassment. Taking a deep steady breath, she explained her situation.

"Can you come up and pick me up first?" She added when she was done, "It's really…" She didn't want to say she was scared. And she didn't want to say that the place was creepy either. She just didn't like the idea of waiting in the waiting room with that squat creepier lingering around.

"...Late," she finished, deciding that was a safe word.

"Sure thing, little 'cuz," Pojohn replied, laughter in his voice, "Just promise me one thing."

This took her by surprise; she couldn't possibly imagine what he was going to make her promise. She gave a hesitant "Sure" and waited, her tubes twitching with conflicting emotions.

"That you'll be waiting when I get there," He said after a moment in a no-nonsense voice, "Last time I was up there, I was repairing a bus. All I know is that I never want to get old if getting old means I end up in that place…See ya soon." And then he hung up, making her feel even worse than before.


End file.
